January 10, 1946: The General Assembly of the United Nations Convenes for the First Time

January 10, 2015

The first session of the United Nations in London on January 10. Photo via the United Nations.

Ready to fight back?

Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions every Tuesday.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue.

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

Support Progressive Journalism

The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.

Fight Back!

Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.

Travel With The Nation

Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.

Sign up for our Wine Club today.

Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?

The Nation had previously urged that the United Nations (then abbreviated as UNO, for United Nations Organization) be permanently based in Hyde Park, New York: “Nothing could be more fitting than that the new organization for world peace should select the birthplace and home of the man most responsible for its inception. For Hyde Park has taken on symbolic significance not only for the great mass of the American people but for the peace-seeking peoples of the world.” The UN moved to its present headquarters, on the East Side of Manhattan, in 1952. The following little item appeared in The Nation’s “In the Wind” news-blurb section on January 19, 1946.

Our special agent for UNO affairs swears this story is true. Before the United States delegates left for the UNO conference they asked the British embassy in Washington whether there would be any customs restrictions on the baggage they took. After consulting the regulations, an attaché informed them that “the delegates may bring any amount and type of baggage they desire, except that in firearms they will be limited to one rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition per person.”

To mark The Nation’s 150th anniversary, every morning this year The Almanac will highlight something that happened that day in history—an event, a birth, a death—and how The Nation covered it.Get The Almanac every day (or every week) by signing up to the e-mail newsletter.

Richard KreitnerTwitterRichard Kreitner, a contributing writer to The Nation, is working on a history of American disunion.